Different types of radiation therapy beams, including electron beams, gamma rays, high energy X-rays and protons are used in the treatment of various cancer states. Verification of the location and magnitude of the radiation dose delivered to target volume in the body in such treatments is an important requirement and in-situ/in-vivo tracking of these beams is an important challenge for radiation therapy today.
While radiation therapy procedures are very carefully planned, specifically addressing a selected target volume in each patient, and each radiation session planned using available simulation tools and prior experimental clinical data, there is no standard technique available at this time to provide real time monitoring and assurance that the procedure is indeed delivering the desired/lethal dose to the cancer tissue, while sparing the neighboring organs and tissues that might be at risk.
There thus remains a need for a method for verifying the location and magnitude of the radiation dose delivered to target volume in the body in such treatments as well as for the in-situ/in-vivo tracking of these treatment beams.